Service Dog Candidates get Brain Scans to Determine Job Suitability

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Working dogs are working dogs, right? Well, maybe not, say researchers who are using brain scans (functional MRIs) to determine which dogs make the best candidates for the role of service dogs. The results of a recent study demonstrated that brain scans of canine candidates to assist people with disabilities can help predict which dogs are most likely to fail the rigorous service training program. The study found that fMRI boosted the ability to identify dogs that would ultimately fail service-dog training to 67 percent, up from about 47 percent without the use of fMRI.

The journal Scientific Reports published the results of the study, involving 43 dogs who underwent service training at Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) in Santa Rosa, California…

All of the dogs in the study underwent a battery of behavioral tests showing that they had a calm temperament before being selected for training. Despite calm exteriors, however, some of the dogs showed higher activity in the amygdala — an area of the brain associated with excitability. These dogs were more likely to fail the training program…

The study found that fMRI boosted the ability to identify dogs that would ultimately fail to 67 percent, up from about 47 percent without the use of fMRI…

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“The brain scans may be like taking a dog’s mental temperature. You could think of it as a medical test with a normal range for a service dog. And the heightened neural activity that we see in the amygdala of some dogs may be outside of that range, indicating an abnormal value for a successful service dog.”

-Dr. Gregory Berns, Emory University neuroscientist

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The findings are important since the cost of training a service dog ranges from $20,000 to $50,000. As many as 70 percent of the animals that start a six-to-nine-month training program have to be released for behavioral reasons…

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“The ideal service dog is one that is highly motivated, but also doesn’t get excessively excited or nervous. The two neural regions that we focused on — the caudate and the amygdala — seem to distinguish those two traits. Our findings suggest that we may be able to pick up variations in these internal mental states before they get to the level of overt behaviors.”